European Poker Tour tournaments have fabulous structure. Players start with 10,000 chips and blinds of 25/50 with 60 minute levels. This structure is the case for all EPT events, except for the EPT Grand Final in which players start with 30,000 chips and blinds of 50/100 and 60 minute levels that eventually increase to 75 minute levels.
With such a great structure, the strategy one should bring to the table for the early levels in an EPT event differs from how one might play, say, a $20+$2 online poker tournament.
There are a couple styles and approaches one can employ for the early levels of an EPT tournament:
Active Opportunism
Since the blinds are low, some people like to use a style of playing a lot of hands in the early levels. The logic is that you might be able to see a flop for really cheap and flop a monster against someone holding a premium pocket pair (like Aces or Kings). In my experience, this strategy usually sounds a lot rosier than it really is. What typically happens it that you wind up bleeding your stack down to 8,000-9,000 on account of playing a little too haplessly. It is imperative for players who use this style to have good discipline. It can be tempting to try to dig your way out of a small hole by digging even deeper. The early levels of an EPT event are not the time to give away a significant portion of your stack in a marginal spot.
Selective Opportunism
I believe this is the best strategy to use early in an EPT event and the strategy I would recommend for others to use. Selective opportunism means striking a good balance between “taking shots” and playing really tight. With this style, you’ll be seeing more flops than you will at the later stages of the tournament, but you’re not letting it get carried away.
A few examples of ways to do this are:
- Call raises from the big-blind with Ace-suited hands.
- See a generous amount of flops in late position.
- Keep pots small pre-flop with small- to medium-sized pocket pairs in hopes of winning a huge pot with a set.
This strategy differs from active opportunism in that you’re still going to be folding most of the time in early position and aren’t taking any floaters with stuff like Nine-Six suited or other similarly tempting, but ultimately junk hands.
Mr. Tight
This isn’t a bad strategy. Players inexperienced to live poker who are playing in their first EPT event following an online qualification would be wise to use this strategy. Essentially, you’re folding almost all hands except:
- Pocket pairs to try to flop a set.
- Broadway hands in late position.
Otherwise, the name of the game with this strategy is fold, fold, fold. There’s nothing wrong with playing tight in these levels. Remember, some players like Phil Hellmuth are notorious for not even participating in the first couple levels of most tournaments. It doesn’t get much tighter than that!